mai 14, 2008
CHUT
CHUT
mai 13, 2008
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AD
From: Ted Pelton
To: Raymond Federman
Sent: Mon, 12 May 2008 5:50 pm
Subject: Happy Birthday ad
Ray,
This is the ad I'd like to run in the next Rain Taxi, but I wanted to get your approval. I think it's tender and funny, and I hope you do too. I think it's also in keeping with the spirit of the book and a good advertisement.
Ted
mai 12, 2008
AT THE SORBONNE
a true story
Yesterday, lost in cyberspace in search of I don’t remember what, maybe looking if my blog hadn’t been vandalized, I stumbled on the site of the Sorbonne. The famous glorious elitist historical Sorbonne in Paris.
Just hearing that word, makes me nauseous. It reminds me that only Les Fils à Papa – Daddy’s Darling Boys – can study at the Sorbonne. Me, the son of that good-for-nothing lazy tubercular gambling womanizing communist artiste manqué who was my father had no chance of ever getting into that pantheon of learning.
Well yesterday, as I stumbled on that site, I came upon the list of the literature courses offered at the Sorbonne for 2008 – not that I was really interested – just curious. When I saw that I called out to Erica who usually plays solitaire on her computer when I get lost in cyberspace,
– Erica, come and see this, I shouted.
– What? called back Erica.
– You won’t believe this. Some lady prof at the Sorbonne is teaching La voix dans le cabinet de débarras in her course.
So Erica comes and right there on the screen of my computer we read this:
ÉCRITURE DE L’HISTOIRE ET POÉTIQUE DE LA VIOLENCE
K3073
Responsable : Mlle Emilie LUCAS-LECLIN
A travers un choix de textes aux formes narratives singulières (un roman aux confins du théâtre, un récit court bilingue, formé d’une seule phrase dénuée de ponctuation et une très brève nouvelle), nous aimerions faire découvrir trois regards sur la guerre, à la croisée des cultures françaises, germanophones et américaines. Nous proposerons, à travers ce corpus, une analyse des procédés liés à l’écriture de la violence et une réflexion sur les modes de résurgence de l’Histoire dans le récit moderne.
Œuvres au programme:
Raymond Federman, La voix dans le débarras / The voice in the closet, Les Impressions Nouvelles
Laurent Gaudé, Cris, Actes Sud, Babel
Peter Handke, « La guerre éclate », nouvelle tirée du recueil Bienvenue au conseil d’administration, Gallimard, « Folio », trad. de G.-A. Goldschmidt (pour les germanistes, Begrüssung des Aufsichtsrats, édition D.T.V.)
Roughly paraphrased in English. Professor Emilie Lucas-Leclin with the choice of three texts with singular narrative forms [a novel in the confines of theater, whatever that means, that’s me talking here; a short bilingual tale, made of only one punctuationless sentence; and a brief short story] would like to uncover three different visions of the war, at the crossroad of French, Germanic, and American cultures. She proposes, through this corpus, to analyze the processes connected to the writing of violence, and a reflection on the modes of resurgence of History in modern fiction.
And after that, the three authors and the title of the works that will be analyzed are listed with the name of their publishers, as it should be.
Me, Federman being taught at the Sorbonne. I can’t believe that. The good little French bourgeois of that prestigious institution are going to read and discuss that unreadable book.
– Are you impressed now, Erica says. Last year they were teaching you at Harvard. The year before at Yale. And now the Sorbonne. Next year for sure, Oxford. You have arrived?
– Stop making fun of me. I’m not impressed. On the contrary, I’m depressed just thinking of the kind of interpretations these Sorbonnards are going to write in their term papers.
– You’re never satisfied. You always want more. I’m going back to my game of solitary, and let you ponder what it means to be taught at the Sorbonne, while still alive. I’m sure that your great Samuel Beckett was never taught at the Sorbonne while he was alive. Think of that.
And while thinking about that, I remembered that once, way back then, I gave a lecture and a reading at the Sorbonne. Yes, I did. That day I read from Take It or Leave It. I remember now. It was in 1977. Soon after the publication of TIOLI.
Five American avant-garde novelists had been invited to come to France, all expenses paid, to talk about their work and read from it. This Sorbonne colloquium had been organized by a group of French avant-garde novelists who wanted to know how we functioned as avant-garde writers and why we were so famous in America. Well, we didn’t want to disappoint them.
Ronald Sukenick, Robert Coover, Ishmael Reed [yes the fantastic black novelist], Raymond Federman and the then famous in Hollywood and infamous in New York, Jerzy Kosinski, who was, of course, the star of our group, were flown to Paris.
So, here we are at the Hôtel du Pas de Calais, rue des Saints Père, on the left bank, as it should be, and we are all gathered in the breakfast room of the hotel before being taken to the Sorbonne, for the first event.
Suddenly, a television crew arrives, with camera, and a sexy lady interviewer in mini-skirt with two sexy assistants, also in mini-skirt. Only the cameraman is not wearing a mini-skirt.
And as soon as they have recognized Jerzy Kosinski, they rush to him, literally licking their rouge à lèvre, and surround him, and the interview begins with Kosinski sitting on the table with one foot on a chair. I should mention that he is wearing one of those Hollywood casual suits that pretended to look in those days like a Mao suit. His was greenish. The interview goes on for quite a while. With lots of giggling on the part of the interviewer and her assistants.
Sitting at another table in a corner of the room away from the interview, the rest of us, Ron, Bob, Ish, and me, are being totally ignored. Not once during the interview does Jurek point to us, or motion in our direction. The interview crew doesn’t even look at us when it leaves.
So now we are at the Sorbonne, in an old dusty rather somber but venerable auditorium. We can feel the history and the historical asses that sat on those benches for centuries.
Today is Jerzy Kosinski’s day. Each of us has been assigned a day. Tomorrow it will be Ish. Then Coover. Then Sukenick. Then me. Me, I will speak and read in French. The others will have an interpreter when they speak and read. But not Kosinski. Jerzy is quite fluent in French.
The entire Polish aristocracy of Paris is crowded in the auditorium. Standing room only for the students. Lots of fancy furs and glittering jewelry all over the place. These are not the Polish coal miners here today. These are the upper-class Poles exiled from Communism.
Standing casually in his casual suit in front of the microphone, Kosinski is describing what the life of a novelist like him is in America. Can you believe, he laments, that my latest novel sold only 350000 copies, while the dumb Americans sit lobotomized – Jerzy’s word – in front of their televisions with a beer can in their hand while their wives are dozing away on the couch. And he goes on telling the distinguished audience what a miserable country America is, and how the people are idiots, and do not appreciate his work.
Well, I cannot remember exactly all he said, but the Polish ladies were tittering and applauding and wiggling their succulent derrieres on the historical benches of the auditorium.
After a thunderous and prolonged applause , the moderator of the colloquium asked if there were any question. We were sitting on the front row. Right in the middle. Ron, Bob, Ish, and me. Ishamel Reed got up, and putting on what I call his gorilla posture and tone of voice, he said, Mister Kosinsiki do you know what the people in America would say if they had heard what you said here, they would say to you, Why don’t you go back to your fucking country. And Ish sat down.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Kosinski did not answer Ish. He just turned to the next person who had stood up to ask a question.
Sukenick, Bob, Ish, and I left the auditorium when Kosinski started reading from his latest novel that only sold 350000 copies, and we went to a gourmet restaurant where Coover, the great wine connoisseur that he is, ordered four different bottles of wine which he insisted on paying with the royalty money he had just gotten from his French publisher for, if I remember correctly, the translation of Spanking the Maid. But that’s another story.
Back in the auditorium at the Sorbonne. Today is Ishmael Reed’s day. Before talking about his work and reading from it, Ishmael thanked – but this time in that marvelous American language Ish can so well write and talk -- he thanked the entire French population, the President of the République, the Minister of Education, the President of the Sorbonne, and everyone else in the audience for giving a poor black writer like him, raised in the ghettos of Buffalol [yes that’s where Ish is from] the honor of speaking in such a prestigious historical place.
By the way, this was Ishmael Reed’s first trip ever to Europe.
And then he read, only the way Ish can read his own writing, as though he was speaking jazz. He read from Mumbo Jumbo.
The audience was quite different from the day before, but the applause were just as loud and as long as the day before. Ishmael Reed had conquered Paris. Or at least, those Parisians who still read books.
Well rapidly now. The next day was Ron’s day. He talked with his usual intelligence and lucidity about the situation of experimental fiction in America. Then he read from 98.6. One of the great American novels of the 70s that probably sold less than 1000 copies when it first appeared.
The following day Coover spoke and read. A reading by Robert Coover is always a special event. Certainly the best reader of all the writers of our generation. He read from Public Burning, that controversial American historical novel. He read the scene where the young lawyer Nixon steps into dog shit on his way to court to burn the Rosenbergs. Those who came to listen where thrilled. I should say the place was full every day.
Even when it was my day. I spoke about what it meant to be a French exiled writer in America, etc. And then I read from TIOLI. The Buick Special Chapter. It was well received. I think.
During the few days in Paris, Ron, Bob, Ish and I, had some superb meals in excellent restaurants. Only the final evening Jerzy Kosinski joined us. The organizer of the colloquium had invited all five of us to a banquet in a fancy three star restaurant. It so happened that I was seated next to Kosinski, and we had a really good talk together. We became buddies. After all we were both exiled writers.
One more thing. One afternoon we went to the old famous Shakespeare Bookstore, where James Joyce and all the writers of the Lost Generation used to hang out. That day, Ron was complaining that his leg was hurting and that he had difficulty walking. When the lady owner of the bookstore heard that, she gave Ron a cane. One of the canes that belonged to James Joyce, she told us. Ron kept it all his life. But it was that day perhaps, back in 1977, that his body started disintegrating.
It got so bad and so painful on the plane back to the States, that when we arrived at JFK we requested a wheelchair to get Ron out of the airport. Ron reminded me of that just before he changed tense, and we laughed. He even remembered how the custom agent said to him, after having inspected his passport, Welcome Home.
So maybe now that one of my books is being taught at the Sorbonne I should not be depressed, but truly impressed. Ron would have laughed with me if he were still around. Federman at the Sorbonne. What cringing irony, he would say.
Yesterday, lost in cyberspace in search of I don’t remember what, maybe looking if my blog hadn’t been vandalized, I stumbled on the site of the Sorbonne. The famous glorious elitist historical Sorbonne in Paris.
Just hearing that word, makes me nauseous. It reminds me that only Les Fils à Papa – Daddy’s Darling Boys – can study at the Sorbonne. Me, the son of that good-for-nothing lazy tubercular gambling womanizing communist artiste manqué who was my father had no chance of ever getting into that pantheon of learning.
Well yesterday, as I stumbled on that site, I came upon the list of the literature courses offered at the Sorbonne for 2008 – not that I was really interested – just curious. When I saw that I called out to Erica who usually plays solitaire on her computer when I get lost in cyberspace,
– Erica, come and see this, I shouted.
– What? called back Erica.
– You won’t believe this. Some lady prof at the Sorbonne is teaching La voix dans le cabinet de débarras in her course.
So Erica comes and right there on the screen of my computer we read this:
ÉCRITURE DE L’HISTOIRE ET POÉTIQUE DE LA VIOLENCE
K3073
Responsable : Mlle Emilie LUCAS-LECLIN
A travers un choix de textes aux formes narratives singulières (un roman aux confins du théâtre, un récit court bilingue, formé d’une seule phrase dénuée de ponctuation et une très brève nouvelle), nous aimerions faire découvrir trois regards sur la guerre, à la croisée des cultures françaises, germanophones et américaines. Nous proposerons, à travers ce corpus, une analyse des procédés liés à l’écriture de la violence et une réflexion sur les modes de résurgence de l’Histoire dans le récit moderne.
Œuvres au programme:
Raymond Federman, La voix dans le débarras / The voice in the closet, Les Impressions Nouvelles
Laurent Gaudé, Cris, Actes Sud, Babel
Peter Handke, « La guerre éclate », nouvelle tirée du recueil Bienvenue au conseil d’administration, Gallimard, « Folio », trad. de G.-A. Goldschmidt (pour les germanistes, Begrüssung des Aufsichtsrats, édition D.T.V.)
Roughly paraphrased in English. Professor Emilie Lucas-Leclin with the choice of three texts with singular narrative forms [a novel in the confines of theater, whatever that means, that’s me talking here; a short bilingual tale, made of only one punctuationless sentence; and a brief short story] would like to uncover three different visions of the war, at the crossroad of French, Germanic, and American cultures. She proposes, through this corpus, to analyze the processes connected to the writing of violence, and a reflection on the modes of resurgence of History in modern fiction.
And after that, the three authors and the title of the works that will be analyzed are listed with the name of their publishers, as it should be.
Me, Federman being taught at the Sorbonne. I can’t believe that. The good little French bourgeois of that prestigious institution are going to read and discuss that unreadable book.
– Are you impressed now, Erica says. Last year they were teaching you at Harvard. The year before at Yale. And now the Sorbonne. Next year for sure, Oxford. You have arrived?
– Stop making fun of me. I’m not impressed. On the contrary, I’m depressed just thinking of the kind of interpretations these Sorbonnards are going to write in their term papers.
– You’re never satisfied. You always want more. I’m going back to my game of solitary, and let you ponder what it means to be taught at the Sorbonne, while still alive. I’m sure that your great Samuel Beckett was never taught at the Sorbonne while he was alive. Think of that.
And while thinking about that, I remembered that once, way back then, I gave a lecture and a reading at the Sorbonne. Yes, I did. That day I read from Take It or Leave It. I remember now. It was in 1977. Soon after the publication of TIOLI.
Five American avant-garde novelists had been invited to come to France, all expenses paid, to talk about their work and read from it. This Sorbonne colloquium had been organized by a group of French avant-garde novelists who wanted to know how we functioned as avant-garde writers and why we were so famous in America. Well, we didn’t want to disappoint them.
Ronald Sukenick, Robert Coover, Ishmael Reed [yes the fantastic black novelist], Raymond Federman and the then famous in Hollywood and infamous in New York, Jerzy Kosinski, who was, of course, the star of our group, were flown to Paris.
So, here we are at the Hôtel du Pas de Calais, rue des Saints Père, on the left bank, as it should be, and we are all gathered in the breakfast room of the hotel before being taken to the Sorbonne, for the first event.
Suddenly, a television crew arrives, with camera, and a sexy lady interviewer in mini-skirt with two sexy assistants, also in mini-skirt. Only the cameraman is not wearing a mini-skirt.
And as soon as they have recognized Jerzy Kosinski, they rush to him, literally licking their rouge à lèvre, and surround him, and the interview begins with Kosinski sitting on the table with one foot on a chair. I should mention that he is wearing one of those Hollywood casual suits that pretended to look in those days like a Mao suit. His was greenish. The interview goes on for quite a while. With lots of giggling on the part of the interviewer and her assistants.
Sitting at another table in a corner of the room away from the interview, the rest of us, Ron, Bob, Ish, and me, are being totally ignored. Not once during the interview does Jurek point to us, or motion in our direction. The interview crew doesn’t even look at us when it leaves.
So now we are at the Sorbonne, in an old dusty rather somber but venerable auditorium. We can feel the history and the historical asses that sat on those benches for centuries.
Today is Jerzy Kosinski’s day. Each of us has been assigned a day. Tomorrow it will be Ish. Then Coover. Then Sukenick. Then me. Me, I will speak and read in French. The others will have an interpreter when they speak and read. But not Kosinski. Jerzy is quite fluent in French.
The entire Polish aristocracy of Paris is crowded in the auditorium. Standing room only for the students. Lots of fancy furs and glittering jewelry all over the place. These are not the Polish coal miners here today. These are the upper-class Poles exiled from Communism.
Standing casually in his casual suit in front of the microphone, Kosinski is describing what the life of a novelist like him is in America. Can you believe, he laments, that my latest novel sold only 350000 copies, while the dumb Americans sit lobotomized – Jerzy’s word – in front of their televisions with a beer can in their hand while their wives are dozing away on the couch. And he goes on telling the distinguished audience what a miserable country America is, and how the people are idiots, and do not appreciate his work.
Well, I cannot remember exactly all he said, but the Polish ladies were tittering and applauding and wiggling their succulent derrieres on the historical benches of the auditorium.
After a thunderous and prolonged applause , the moderator of the colloquium asked if there were any question. We were sitting on the front row. Right in the middle. Ron, Bob, Ish, and me. Ishamel Reed got up, and putting on what I call his gorilla posture and tone of voice, he said, Mister Kosinsiki do you know what the people in America would say if they had heard what you said here, they would say to you, Why don’t you go back to your fucking country. And Ish sat down.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Kosinski did not answer Ish. He just turned to the next person who had stood up to ask a question.
Sukenick, Bob, Ish, and I left the auditorium when Kosinski started reading from his latest novel that only sold 350000 copies, and we went to a gourmet restaurant where Coover, the great wine connoisseur that he is, ordered four different bottles of wine which he insisted on paying with the royalty money he had just gotten from his French publisher for, if I remember correctly, the translation of Spanking the Maid. But that’s another story.
Back in the auditorium at the Sorbonne. Today is Ishmael Reed’s day. Before talking about his work and reading from it, Ishmael thanked – but this time in that marvelous American language Ish can so well write and talk -- he thanked the entire French population, the President of the République, the Minister of Education, the President of the Sorbonne, and everyone else in the audience for giving a poor black writer like him, raised in the ghettos of Buffalol [yes that’s where Ish is from] the honor of speaking in such a prestigious historical place.
By the way, this was Ishmael Reed’s first trip ever to Europe.
And then he read, only the way Ish can read his own writing, as though he was speaking jazz. He read from Mumbo Jumbo.
The audience was quite different from the day before, but the applause were just as loud and as long as the day before. Ishmael Reed had conquered Paris. Or at least, those Parisians who still read books.
Well rapidly now. The next day was Ron’s day. He talked with his usual intelligence and lucidity about the situation of experimental fiction in America. Then he read from 98.6. One of the great American novels of the 70s that probably sold less than 1000 copies when it first appeared.
The following day Coover spoke and read. A reading by Robert Coover is always a special event. Certainly the best reader of all the writers of our generation. He read from Public Burning, that controversial American historical novel. He read the scene where the young lawyer Nixon steps into dog shit on his way to court to burn the Rosenbergs. Those who came to listen where thrilled. I should say the place was full every day.
Even when it was my day. I spoke about what it meant to be a French exiled writer in America, etc. And then I read from TIOLI. The Buick Special Chapter. It was well received. I think.
During the few days in Paris, Ron, Bob, Ish and I, had some superb meals in excellent restaurants. Only the final evening Jerzy Kosinski joined us. The organizer of the colloquium had invited all five of us to a banquet in a fancy three star restaurant. It so happened that I was seated next to Kosinski, and we had a really good talk together. We became buddies. After all we were both exiled writers.
One more thing. One afternoon we went to the old famous Shakespeare Bookstore, where James Joyce and all the writers of the Lost Generation used to hang out. That day, Ron was complaining that his leg was hurting and that he had difficulty walking. When the lady owner of the bookstore heard that, she gave Ron a cane. One of the canes that belonged to James Joyce, she told us. Ron kept it all his life. But it was that day perhaps, back in 1977, that his body started disintegrating.
It got so bad and so painful on the plane back to the States, that when we arrived at JFK we requested a wheelchair to get Ron out of the airport. Ron reminded me of that just before he changed tense, and we laughed. He even remembered how the custom agent said to him, after having inspected his passport, Welcome Home.
So maybe now that one of my books is being taught at the Sorbonne I should not be depressed, but truly impressed. Ron would have laughed with me if he were still around. Federman at the Sorbonne. What cringing irony, he would say.
mai 10, 2008
new book
a most amazing little book from the point of view of typography and topology
a master piece
cadex-editions.net/article.php3?id_article=312&a
-----Original Message-----
From: Sharon Blackie
Sent: Sat, 10 May 2008 5:20 am
Subject: Links
Raymond - would be so grateful if you could put a link on your blog to The Sam Book page - it is - tworavenspress.com/HTML%20Pages/The%20Sam%20Book.htm
Also - since we revised the site the url for the Double or Nothing page has changed. Any chance you could update? It is ... tworavenspress.com/HTML%20Pages/Double%20or%20Nothing.htm
And if you want to put a link to the flyer for your London event it is: tworavenspress.com/Logos/Federman%20workshop%20flyer.pdf
Best
S
Sharon Blackie B.A. (Hons), M.A., Ph.D.
Director, Two Ravens Press Ltd.
Green Willow Croft, Rhiroy, Lochbroom, Ullapool, Ross-shire IV23 2SF
Tel 01854 655307; mobile 0770 302 4048
http://www.tworavenspress.com/
http://www.sharonblackie.com/
Sent: Sat, 10 May 2008 5:20 am
Subject: Links
Raymond - would be so grateful if you could put a link on your blog to The Sam Book page - it is - tworavenspress.com/HTML%20Pages/The%20Sam%20Book.htm
Also - since we revised the site the url for the Double or Nothing page has changed. Any chance you could update? It is ... tworavenspress.com/HTML%20Pages/Double%20or%20Nothing.htm
And if you want to put a link to the flyer for your London event it is: tworavenspress.com/Logos/Federman%20workshop%20flyer.pdf
Best
S
Sharon Blackie B.A. (Hons), M.A., Ph.D.Director, Two Ravens Press Ltd.
Green Willow Croft, Rhiroy, Lochbroom, Ullapool, Ross-shire IV23 2SF
Tel 01854 655307; mobile 0770 302 4048
http://www.tworavenspress.com/
http://www.sharonblackie.com/
avril 24, 2008
Cook Books: Deconstructing Books Contest
Watch Raymond Federman, Davis Schneiderman, and Lidia Yuknavitch boil their books in noodles--and find out how to submit your own book-destruction video for a huge cash prize!
youtube.com/watch?v=g0tCMY02awo
Libellés : books, contest, cooking, deconstruction, noodles
avril 23, 2008
Raymond Federman - Un retour dans le débarras
A l'occasion de la nouvelle édition de "La Voix dans le débarras" et de la publication de "Chut !" aux éditions Leo Scheer, Les Impressions Nouvelles mettent en ligne une séquence réalisée en 2002 pour l'émission Mic Mac, sur Arte. Raymond Federman avait accepté de retourner avec Benoît Peeters à Montrouge, dans la maison de son enfance, où toute sa famille fut arrêtée lors de la Rafle du Vel d'Hiv.
dailymotion.com/video/x4wudm_raymond-federman-un-retour-dans-le_creation
THE WIND RISES ... ONE MUST ATTEMPT TO LIVE
I am working on the English version of Chut/Shhh – the French version is being accused of being repetitious – of repeating stories I’ve already told elsewhere – of being self-plagiaristic – of being too realistic – not experimental enough typographically – not self-reflexive enough – too traditional – and all kinds of things like that are being said in the reviews so far - though all the reviews are very favorable – but since the reviewers say Chut is not really fiction – it’s something else - but they don’t know what - so they say it’s auto-biographical – lucky for they don’t say it’s autofiction -- the word the French love the most to describe a kind of writing that resembles the life of the author – in any case nobody really can tell what Chut is – maybe Chut has invented a new genre that has not yet be classified and pigeon-holed by the cacademics – someone even went as far as saying Chut is not true – I don’t know in what sense – saying that in this book Federman tells things that have never happened to him to make us believe that he had a terribly unhappy childhood – but still the reviewers say that Chut is full of emotions – that it’s very moving – even sad while being funny at the same time – no one dares say that Chut is sentimental because that would really make Federman pissed – he who has resisted sentimentalism by kicking les belles-lettres in the ass at the risk of breaking his leg –
yes of course all of Federman’s books playgiarize each other – he admits that much himself – he warns the readers in advance that he is going to go steal something in the stories he told before – he even give exact references – titles - -page numbers – etc – so that the reader can verify – all this he can do because all the Federman stories are really part of one book – the big book he’s been writing for more than 50 years – so inevitably there are repetitions in that book – with variations of course – with Federman one never knows which is the good version – the true version of the stories he tells – and if you were to ask him he would tell you – the last one I told is the true version – until he tells another version which displaced the version which was the last – and which now becomes the one before the last – and so on until the final breath –
for as long as there is breath
old sam once said
there is the possibility
of telling the same story
another way
I quote
I don’t know why I told this story.
I could just as well have told another one.
Perhaps next time I’ll tell another one.
Living should, you’ll see it’s all the same.
That’s what The Expelled Beckett tells us.
And it is true that in life as well as in literature
there many things that are the same
but to get us out of the hole
in which writers fall in regularly
an old poet already under the ground
whispers to us
Le vent se lève ! ... Il faut tenter de vivre!
The wind rises ! .... One must attempt to live!
That is to say – to write ...
avril 18, 2008
Proust et fragonard
Quel petit salaud il était Proust – quel pervers ce petit bonhomme qui se baladait la nuit dans des endroits louches – y a que du sexe dans l’histoire que Proust nous raconte – du sexe partout – partout dans les mots -- il suffit de regarder de plus près pour tout à coup se dire – ah merde c’est ça que ça veut dire – c’est de ça que Proust nous parle ici – par exemple prenons -- à l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs -- ce merveilleux titre pastoral – cette petite phrase – je me sers du mot phrase dans le sens que Proust a donné à ce mot en parlant de musique – cette phrase qui nous invite d’aller nous promener dans la nature pour regarder les fleurs – eh bien si on regarde cette petite phrase de plus près – et surtout si on l’écoute bien – car chez Proust il faut aussi écouter les mots – il faut écouter les petites phrases musicales qui circulent dans l’histoire que Proust nous raconte -- comme s’il était en train de jouer du piano plutôt que de griffonner des mots sur du papier – la grande histoire que Proust nous a racontée c’est pas seulement de l’architecture – de la peinture – de la sculpture -- mais c’est aussi de la musique -- de la musique avant toute de chose – comme disait Verlaine -- seulement un grand musicien des mots aurait pu inventer Vinteuil – et la fille de Vinteuil – et Madame Swann – et le Baron de Charlus – ah quel musicien du sexe celui-là -- oui quand on lit Proust faut non seulement regarder les mots qui coulent devant nous comme l’eau d’une rivière -- excusez cette mauvaise liquide métaphore elle m’est tombée dessus comme un petite averse sans que je m’en rende compte – oui il faut écouter les mots de Proust -- comme Swann écoutait la petite phrase de Vinteuil avec passion -- phrase -- spécifie Proust en parlant de musique -- mais je me suis égaré dans la poésie de Proust – poésie et musique c’est la même chose -- Proust était aussi un grand poète – Beckett était peut-être le seul à avoir compris cela – parce que Beckett quand il lisait Proust il s’en foutait de ce que les mots voulaient dire – ce qu’il regardait et écoutait la forme que prenait les mots sur le papier – les mots de Proust qui semblaient jouir de leur propre forme – comme le feu jouit de sa forme – bon je disais que partout derrière les mots de Proust il y a quelque chose de sexuel en train de mijoter -- encore une mauvaise métaphore – celle-à ne pas poursuivre – revenons à l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs – je disais que si on regarde – si on écoute ce beau titre si lyrique et si mélodique – on entend quelque chose d’autre -- on entend quelque chose plutôt érotique -- en tout cas voilà ce que moi j’ai entendu en lisant cette phrase – à l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs – moi j’ai entendu – dans le trou des jeunes filles en chaleur -- bon vous allez me dire que c’est moi le petit dégoûtant – le vieux pervers -- le maniaque du sexe qui se permet de tordre en torchon de mots la musique de Proust – fausse métaphore – mais on s’en fout – ce truand qui se permet de réduire une si belle phrase – qui ressemble à un mignon tableau de Fragonard – en un tableau dégueulasse de Hans Bellmer – vous me direz qu’on a pas le droit de faire ça à Proust – eh bien moi je vous dirai que Proust savait exactement ce qu’il faisait en nous faisant voir un tableau de Fragonard dans la petite phrase de son titre – car comme il l’avait si bien vu lui-même en passant la moitié de sa vie à regarder les tableaux des grands maîtres – les tableaux de Fragonard ne sont que des scènes de cul – des culs en chaleur cachés sous les amples robes des jeune filles sur les balançoires -- Proust avait compris tout cela – mais timide et nocturne comme il était – et refoulé du sexe -- si on peut dire – il a caché tout cela dans la musique de ses mots -- comme s’il voulait nous endormir gentiment pendant que nous écoutions sa zizique -- ou plutôt -- jusqu’à ce que son livre nous tombe des mains – comme il est tombe des mains de Marcel – tout au début de l’histoire que nous raconte Proust il nous fait sentir la volupté de ses mots – il nous séduitmars 30, 2008
Two Dozen Obligatory Questions An Interviewer Must Ask a Famous Writer [With the Answers the Famous Writer Usually Gives]
Photo: Steve Murez
I was being interviewed for t.v. by this georgous blonde in Berlin
that interview inspired this little piece
Q: Why do you write?
A: Because .... just because ...
Q: Why do you write the way you write?
A: I don’t know any other way.
Q: For whom do you write?
A: For my dog.
Q: Who influenced your writing?
A: Homer.
Q: What would you like people to say about your writing?
A: Nothing.
Q: How old were you when you started writing?
A: In kindergarten.
Q: Which of your books is your favorite?
A: The one I haven’t written yet.
Q: How many cups of coffee do you drink while writing?
A: I never drink coffee.
Q: Do you write during the day or at night?
A: Depends on the weather.
Q: What will be the subject of your next book?
A: Me.
Q: Of your many wives which one inspired you the most?
A: I think it was the fourth one but I’m not sure any more.
Q: Do you believe your work will survive?
A: Depends how long I live.
Q: Why did you refuse to accept the Nobel Prize?
A: I hate traveling.
Q: Do you try to influence your readers, and if so in what sense?
A: In the sense that is most satisfying to me.
Q: Do you do a lot of revisions?
A: I never revise. I just write, and write some more.
Q: How does it feel to be famous?
A: It feels weak.
Q: What do you think of your fellow-writers who are also famous?
A: If only they would disappear.
Q: Do you write by hand or with a typewriter or directly on the computer?
A: It depends on the weather.
Q: How do you react when you books are attacked?
A: I laugh.
Q: How much do you make grosso modo with your books?
A: I never count.
Q: What do you wear when you write?
A: It depends on the weather. But I never wear a hat.
Q: Is your writing autobiographic?
A: Everything that is written is fictive.
Q: As an artist do you feel obligated to have a depraved life?
A: Certainly. Otherwise what would be the point of being an artist?
Q: By the way, how would you define yourself as a writer?
A: Small.
Q: What would you like people to say about your writing?
A: The truth.
février 19, 2008
NEW EDITION FROM TWO RAVENS PRESS, WITH NEW PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR...
my British Publisher who just brought out a beautiful new edition of Double or Nothing
the url is below
tworavenspress.com/HTML%20Pages/Catalogue%20novels.htm
Libellés : concrete, double or nothing, novel
février 11, 2008
CRISIS IN THE OVERSEXED SOCIETY
Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a country where everyone was oversexed. At night the men went out armed with kinky objects and flashlights and sneaked into a neighbor's house to bleep their neighbor's wife. In some parts of the country it was the women who went out at night to bleep their neighbor's husband. On returning at dawn, exhausted from these adulterous activities, spouses would find that their own spouse had been bleeped as well.
And so everyone lived in sexual harmony, and no one was ever frustrated because everyone had bleeped or been bleeped during the night. A perfect circular system. In that country, bleeping was synonymous with fair exchange, whether you were giving it or receiving it. The government was a perverse organization set up to bleep the people, while the people spent all their time bleeping the government. So life went on its untroubled course, and the inhabitants were neither frustrated nor undersexed.
But then, one day -- nobody quite knows how or why -- a chaste faithful husband appeared. At night, instead of going out with kinky objects and a flashlight to bleep his neighbor's wife, he stayed home, drinking beer, watching TV, reading cheap novels, and once a month bleeping his own wife. When the oversexed neighbors saw what was going on in his house they stayed away.
This state of affairs could not last. The chaste faithful husband was told that it was very well for him to live a life of sexual abstinence with others, but he had no right to prevent others from bleeping his wife, and for their wives to remain unbleeped. For every night he spent at home, there was a wife in the neighborhood who went without a good bleep.
The faithful husband could offer no excuse for himself. And so he too started staying out every night until dawn, but he could not bring himself to bleep his neighbors's wives. He was chaste and faithful, and that was that. He would go as far as the drugstore and look at the sexy pictures in the girlie magazines, and then he would go home to discover that his wife had been visited and bleeped.
In less than a week, the chaste faithful husband found himself with a wife so exhausted from all the nightly visitations she received that she could not give her own husband even a little marital bleeping on the weekend. But he had only himself to blame. The problem was his chastity and his faithfulness: it had thrown the whole social and sexual system of the country out of kilter. Since he allowed his wife to bleep with others without bleeping himself with anyone else in turn, there was always someone who got home at dawn to find his spouse unbleeped and frustrated -- a lonely unbleeped spouse whom the chaste husband should have visited during the night. Soon, of course, those whose spouses had not been bleeped realized that their spouses were so frustrated they no longer wanted to bleep with their neighbors's spouses because their own spouse wanted it so much. On the other hand, those who came to bleep the faithful husband's wife went away so oversexed that, as a result, they became even more oversexed and perverse.
Meanwhile, those who in the past had been bleeping night after night got into the habit of joining the chaste man in the drugstore to look at the sexy pictures in the girlie magazines.
This only added to the country's frustration and confusion, since it led to more people (males as well as females) becoming chaste and unsexed while others who continued their nightly visitations found that there were more sex starved spouses out there than they could handle and so they became even more oversexed and perverse.
Now the oversexed and perverse people understood that if they spent their nights at the drugstore looking at the sexy pictures in the girly magazines they too would soon become undersexed and chaste. And they thought: Why not pay some of the more frustrated people to go bleep the neighbor's spouse for us?
Soon contracts were drawn, salaries, bonuses, and percentages were agreed upon (with a lot of double-dealing on both sides: the people were still trying to bleep one another). But the end result was that the oversexed became chaste and the undersexed became perverse.
Some of the oversexed became so chaste that they no longer needed to bleep with others or even to pay others to bleep for them. However, because they stopped bleeping they soon became extremely frustrated: the chaste people would see to that. So they paid the most undersexed of the undersexed to protect their spouses from all the other undersexed people. Thus a police force was set up, prisons were built, and a judicial system dealing strictly with sexual offenders was established.
So it was that, only a few years after the arrival of the chaste and faithful husband, nobody talked any more about bleeping or being bleeped, but only about how chaste and how frustrated everyone had become. But deep in their souls, the inhabitants of the country were nostalgic for the good old bleeping days, even though they no longer bleeped every night like they used to.
But then, one day, the chaste and faithful husband died of excessive frustration, and soon after the old tradition of nightly visitations to the spouse of one's neighbor started again, and happiness and harmony returned to this lovely country.
And so everyone lived in sexual harmony, and no one was ever frustrated because everyone had bleeped or been bleeped during the night. A perfect circular system. In that country, bleeping was synonymous with fair exchange, whether you were giving it or receiving it. The government was a perverse organization set up to bleep the people, while the people spent all their time bleeping the government. So life went on its untroubled course, and the inhabitants were neither frustrated nor undersexed.
But then, one day -- nobody quite knows how or why -- a chaste faithful husband appeared. At night, instead of going out with kinky objects and a flashlight to bleep his neighbor's wife, he stayed home, drinking beer, watching TV, reading cheap novels, and once a month bleeping his own wife. When the oversexed neighbors saw what was going on in his house they stayed away.
This state of affairs could not last. The chaste faithful husband was told that it was very well for him to live a life of sexual abstinence with others, but he had no right to prevent others from bleeping his wife, and for their wives to remain unbleeped. For every night he spent at home, there was a wife in the neighborhood who went without a good bleep.
The faithful husband could offer no excuse for himself. And so he too started staying out every night until dawn, but he could not bring himself to bleep his neighbors's wives. He was chaste and faithful, and that was that. He would go as far as the drugstore and look at the sexy pictures in the girlie magazines, and then he would go home to discover that his wife had been visited and bleeped.
In less than a week, the chaste faithful husband found himself with a wife so exhausted from all the nightly visitations she received that she could not give her own husband even a little marital bleeping on the weekend. But he had only himself to blame. The problem was his chastity and his faithfulness: it had thrown the whole social and sexual system of the country out of kilter. Since he allowed his wife to bleep with others without bleeping himself with anyone else in turn, there was always someone who got home at dawn to find his spouse unbleeped and frustrated -- a lonely unbleeped spouse whom the chaste husband should have visited during the night. Soon, of course, those whose spouses had not been bleeped realized that their spouses were so frustrated they no longer wanted to bleep with their neighbors's spouses because their own spouse wanted it so much. On the other hand, those who came to bleep the faithful husband's wife went away so oversexed that, as a result, they became even more oversexed and perverse.
Meanwhile, those who in the past had been bleeping night after night got into the habit of joining the chaste man in the drugstore to look at the sexy pictures in the girlie magazines.
This only added to the country's frustration and confusion, since it led to more people (males as well as females) becoming chaste and unsexed while others who continued their nightly visitations found that there were more sex starved spouses out there than they could handle and so they became even more oversexed and perverse.
Now the oversexed and perverse people understood that if they spent their nights at the drugstore looking at the sexy pictures in the girly magazines they too would soon become undersexed and chaste. And they thought: Why not pay some of the more frustrated people to go bleep the neighbor's spouse for us?
Soon contracts were drawn, salaries, bonuses, and percentages were agreed upon (with a lot of double-dealing on both sides: the people were still trying to bleep one another). But the end result was that the oversexed became chaste and the undersexed became perverse.
Some of the oversexed became so chaste that they no longer needed to bleep with others or even to pay others to bleep for them. However, because they stopped bleeping they soon became extremely frustrated: the chaste people would see to that. So they paid the most undersexed of the undersexed to protect their spouses from all the other undersexed people. Thus a police force was set up, prisons were built, and a judicial system dealing strictly with sexual offenders was established.
So it was that, only a few years after the arrival of the chaste and faithful husband, nobody talked any more about bleeping or being bleeped, but only about how chaste and how frustrated everyone had become. But deep in their souls, the inhabitants of the country were nostalgic for the good old bleeping days, even though they no longer bleeped every night like they used to.
But then, one day, the chaste and faithful husband died of excessive frustration, and soon after the old tradition of nightly visitations to the spouse of one's neighbor started again, and happiness and harmony returned to this lovely country.
février 02, 2008
ANNOUNCING FEDERMAN'S NEW NOVEL
Avant un repas organisé par Stéphane Rouzé et sa femme, Juliette Mahalin-Rouzé, Raymond Federman nous offre un extrait choisi de CHUT. Un extrait, évidemment, olé olé (puisque choisi).
janvier 28, 2008
Return of the Bums
RAYMOND FEDERMANANNOUNCING A SPARKLING NEW EDITION OF A BOOK BY TWO OLD BUMS, UM, I MEAN OLD MASTERS!
THE TWILIGHT OF THE BUMS
NEWLY EDITED AND FEATURING COPIOUS CARTOONAGE BY T. MOTLEY!
starcherone.com/bums.htm
Hilarious! Tender! Iconoclastic! Lettres de merde! Laughterature!
"Stan & Oliver. Frog & Toad, Bud & Lou, The Sunshine Boys, Bill & Ted, Bouvard & Pécuchet - but most of all Vladimir & Estragon - stand behind this book like defrocked priests at an inquest. Old men rule!, at least in the glimmer of a watery eye and inconstant heart." - Charles Bernstein
120 pages in oversized format! All at the ridiculously sensible price of $16 of failing American currency! Get yours while supplies last!
Official release on May 15, 2008, the Old Bums' birthday (Chambers 77, Federman 80) -- Available NOW
only on the Starcherone Books site:
starcherone.com/bums.htm
or by mail:
Starcherone Books
PO Box 303
Buffalo, NY 14201
Please add $4 p/h.
Thank you all for your kind attention,
Ted Pelton
Executive Director
Starcherone Books
PO Box 303
Buffalo, NY 14201
716-885-2726
www.starcherone.com
nowwhatblog.blogspot.com
www.tedpelton.com
